C or D: Michael Anthony and Alex Van Halen as a rhythm section

I'd be more likely to blame Templeman and Landee. The thing Michael Anthony gets the least credit for is his backing vocals... dude sings like a little cherub.

As for Alex, I forgot to mention my favorite thing about him - he's the only hard-rock drummer I know of (and very few in any genre) who says his favorite drummer is Ringo Starr. Which you can totally hear. The fact that he never (in the DLR era, anyway) succumbed to the big '80s drum sound is awesome.

Eddie's guitar is so all over the place I think it would have fallen apart if Michael Anthony got really wild on bass or they would have ended up sounding like some mad late 70s metal version of The Minutemen.

Alex Van Halen used an odd high tuning sound on his toms, they seem to have this really long "blong" sound instead of the usual "thud".

I don't know if either MA or AVH would have had a job in rock if they did not play in Van Halen, but they made it work in that band.

"Featuring the mesmerizing antics of wild frontman David Lee Roth, the stunning, innovative fretwork of guitarist Eddie Van Halen, the manic energy of drummer Alex Van Halen, and the steady work of bass player Michael Anthony..."

Ha! Spot on! Actually, change the names and that could be the opening clause to the description of about a hundred bands.

doomp doomp doomp doomp doomp doomp doomp dt-dt-zoooom!

aa-yea-eeeah!

Point me in the direction of such a band immediately! (And please don't say Living Colour.)

And I second the Ted Templeman nod - he & Landee made some of my favourite sounding records of all time.

And they all got paid by Warner Brothers, and it is them who ultimately makes the decisions.

aa-yea-eeeah!

I love that I can read this and think with at least 75% certainty that I have the song right ("Runnin' With The Devil"?)...anyway, everybody upthread pretty much nailed this one correctly - the rhythm section in this band NEEDED to play it safe and let their two wild men do their thing. In fact, it's the Van Halen songs that feature them the least (like, um...well, "Eruption" I guess) that bore me the most. Gotta lock into some kind of groove before I'll give a shit.

And yes, the backing vocals...wow. "Dance The Night" away is nothing without them.

I'm stuck trying to think of another good band that uses this type of lineup - shredder and hoss on guitar and vox, most conservative bar band ever on bass and drums. For a second I thought the Smiths, but the bass parts on a lot of those songs are actually pretty wild. The Pixies, maybe? They're really too downtempo to really compare in terms of guitar antics, and Frank Black, while distinctive, doesn't really punch through the mix...but you do get the analogous "bassist's backing vocals as secret ingredient" factor. Um...

that's cuz he's using rototoms. apparently tom miking was always an issue for vh; on 5150 it's all electronic toms.

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